General PC can be a time consuming project, especially when you like to do everything the hard way, by using the built in tools in Windows. In the General Forum, there is a thread talking about TuneUp 2008 and other programs designed to make maintenance a little easier.

Intel seems worried about the integrated graphics chipset market. According to this story on DigiTimes, we can expect to see another IGP from Intel, this one being the most powerful. The 780G chipset from AMD is going to be a serious competitor with it's ability to support CrossfireX, but Intel's GM47 will be clocked faster.

A little off topic perhaps, but after sitting through some live blogs of the Apple SDK announcement there are some interesting bits of news coming out. First up, Apple announced a move toward the enterprise customer by adding in features like native ActiveSync Exchange support, push email, push calendar, push contact, remote device wiping, Cisco VPN, WEP2 support and certificates and identities to name the majority. There weren't any direct mentions but I assume that push email will be available to users that do not have access to an Exchange server, but since Apple didn't mention

The first public beta of IE8 has appeared, boasting the ability to pass the Acid2 browser test. In previous flavours of IE, Microsoft took the position of authority claiming that they new better than a bunch of actual web programmers as to what standards should be on the web. This has led to a lot of broken websites that render OK in IE, and awfully in everything else. Firefox's popularity may have lead to Microsoft's about face, but for what ever reason, Microsoft's new browser is it's most standard compliant ever.

If you have never heard of Nexuiz, you are not alone, but you are missing out. The original release was back in 2005, and they are now up to version 2.4 which is much more highly polished than the original. Phoronix has a bevy of screenshots as well as links to the Alientrap website where you can download the game for Windows, Linux and OSX.

Give it a try, it's free and easy to set up, who knows you might even like it.

The Yoggie Gatekeeper Pico is a little USB device, about the size of a flash drive, that protects your PC from attacks coming over the network. With it's software installed it works it's way into Windows' networking stack and convinces it to send all network traffic through the Pico, where it is scanned for anything nasty. Think Computers did find it to be effective, but there were also some features of the Pico that they took issue with.

Sound Blaster's new X-Fi Xtreme card is an Audigy in disguise, though it does use the PCI-E bus. The card isn't a complete waste though, the Guru of 3D found that the new chip does offer some improvements to the Audigys of old, but it is a far cry from a X-Fi. As a bonus, the card even gives a good reason to upgrade to Vista.

Some of you may have never encountered the name before, but Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson are hailed as the Fathers of Roleplaying. Anything you might have played that had Armour Class, Hit Points, THACO or even just used dice to determine the outcome of a characters actions; all of them are based off of Gary's imagination.

It's a Bluetooth mouse, a wireless mouse, a wired mouse and a 1Gb USB drive, all at the same time. The wired talent is for recharging it for wireless use again, you never end up with a mouse you can't use. With Bluetooth enabled laptops, you don't even need the dongle. Check out this handy little mobile sized mouse at the Hardware Zone.

It looks like an old vulnerability that Microsoft never got around to fixing allows you to unlock Windows PCs with just a Linux box and a Firewire connection. The story that was picked up on Slashdot links to a tool that is a proof of concept. The person who discovered the flaw notified Microsoft about it years ago, but since there has been no fix, he has released it publicly. Hopefully that will convince someone it is worth fixing.

Sunnyvale, Calif. - March 3, 2008—OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory and components for enthusiasts and gamers, is pleased to announced the Neural Impulse Actuator (NIA) has begun mass production and launch into channel is imminent.

TweakTown asks a question that has probably occurred to most hardware enthusiasts at some point, what is up with these graphics card bundles? Sure, getting a game is nice, unless you already have it, or wouldn't play it if you were paid to. Jut how many DVI-VGA adapters does one human need anyways? They offer two companies that they feel are offering the right bundles, without adding much to the price. Read on to see who they are.

Upgrading your system piece by piece can be challenging, and I don't necessarily mean to imply it is hard to find the components or install them. I am more referring to the dilemma of bottlenecking, as in this thread, nothing is more disheartening
than buying a new graphics card and seeing no improvements. On the other hand, moving from onboard to add on audio can be a bit confusing. Hard drives are easier, if you want s

DigiTimes has news on the upcoming 4x series of chips for Intel motherboards, including a rough look at their pricing and some details on the P43. Also nice to see is more confirmation that the X48 will be shipping in March, good news for those wanting dual PCI-E 8x slots.

Tweaktown looks at TrueHD on the PC, something that AACS' DRM has made sure we can't do currently. See, if you aren't using HDMI 1.3, you aren't allowed to hear TrueHD, and you can't currently get HDMI 1.3 compliance on a PC. There is hope though, Auzentech was showing off the X-Tension at CES this year; it's simply a HDMI 1.3 audio signal processing daughter board to stick onto your X-Meridian or X-Fi Prelude. Check out the whole story.

While we still have no definite news on where the million or so Semprons that ASUS is rumoured to have bought will end up, but we do know that China will be seeing them for sale. DigiTimes predicts that Intel will drop prices in reaction to the release, a tactic we will likely see in North America once the chips make it over here. Maybe we should look out for low priced Lenovos soon.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. - February 27, 2008 - AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced it has worked closely with Microsoft throughout the Windows Server 2008 development process, to deliver the ultimate server solution.

X-bit Labs picked up a Santa Rosa based Apple MacBook Pro, and for some reason they installed Vista on it. Not only did it work, they compared it to an ASUS Lamborghini VX2S in several benchmarks. The Apple even beat out the Lamborghini in all gaming tests except Crysis. The pairing isn't really that strange if you compare the price of the

Ars Technica spent some time at this years GDC, which had a lot of new independently
created titles on show. Ranging from customized controllers to games for all the consoles as well as the PC, there is a lot happening this year in gaming. Microsoft will have a huge impact on what makes it big, if you are designing a game for the PC or the XBox, you are already working with Microsoft. Check out the big hits from the GDC here.